Paper documents are often promptly discarded after being read. Although paper is relatively inexpensive, the quantity of discarded paper documents is enormous and the disposal of these discarded paper documents raises significant cost and environmental issues. It would, therefore, be desirable for paper documents to be reusable, to minimize both cost and environmental issues.
Erasable media is that which can be reused many times to transiently store images, the images being written on and erasable from the erasable media. For example, photochromic paper employs photochromic materials to provide an imageable surface. Typically, photochromic materials can undergo reversible or irreversible photoinduced color changes in the photochromic containing layer. In addition, the reversible photoinduced color changes enable imaging and erasure of photochromic paper in sequence on the same paper. For example, a light source of a certain wavelength can be used for imaging erasable media, while heat can be used for inducing erasure of imaged erasable media. An inkless erasable imaging formulation is the subject of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/206,136 filed Sep. 8, 2008 and titled “Inkless Reimageable Printing Paper and Method” which is commonly assigned with the present application to Xerox Corp., and is incorporated in its entirety herein by reference.
Because imaging of erasable media has unique requirements, it has previously required dedicated equipment. In particular, a UV source can be required to image the erasable media, and heat can be required to erase an imaged erasable media. In addition, specific temperature parameters are required for each of the imaging and erasing of erasable media. While traditional imaging devices are suitable for performing conventional imaging of non-erasable media, their architecture can be insufficient for handling erasable media alone or in combination with non-erasable media.
Thus, there is a need to overcome these and other problems of the prior art and to provide a dual mode imaging device in which both erasable media and non-erasable paper can be selectively imaged. Even further, the dual mode imaging device should be capable of interchangeably sharing imaging components.